How glumlie sownes yon dirgye song,
Night-ravens flappe the wing;
What knell doth slowlie toll ding dong?
The psalmes of death who sing?

It creeps, the swarthie funeral traine,
The corse is on the beere:

Like croke of todes from lonely moores,
The chaunt doth meet the eere."—

-"Go, bear her corse when midnight's past, With song, and tear, and wayle;

I've gott my wife, I take her home,

My howre of wedlocke hayl.

Lead forth, O clarke, the chaunting quire,
To swell our nuptial song;

Come, preaste, and read the blessing soone,
For bed, for bed we long."-

They heede his calle, and hushte the sowne,
The biere was seen no more;

And follow de him ore feeld and flood
Yet faster than before.

Halloo! halloo! away they goe,
Unheeding wet or drye;

And horse and rider snort and blowe,
And sparkling pebbles flye.

How swifte the hill, how swifte the dale,
Aright, aleft, are gone;

By hedge and tree, by thorpe and towne,
They gallop, gallop on.

Tramp, tramp, acrosse the land they speede,
Splash, splash, acrosse the see:

“Hurrah! the dead can ride apace;
Dost fear to ride with me?

Look up, look up, an airy crewe

In roundel daunces reele;

The moone is bryghte, and blue the nyghte, May'st dimlie see them wheele.

Come to, come to, ye gostlie crew,

Come to, and follow me,

And daunce for us the wedding daunce,

When we in bed shall be.”

And brush, brush, brush, the gostlie crew
Come wheeling ore their heads,
All rustling like the wither'd leaves
That wyde the whirlwind spreads.
Halloo! halloo! away they goe,
Unheeding wet or drye,

And horse and rider snorte and blowe,
And sparkling pebbles flye.

And all that in the moonshyne lay,
Behynde them fled afar;

And backward scudded overhead,
The skye and every star.

Tramp, tramp, across the land they speede,
Splash, splash, across the see;
"Hurrah! the dead can ride apace;
Dost fear to ride with me?

I weene the cock prepares to crowe,
The sand will soone be runne;
I snuff the earlye morning aire,
Downe, downe! our work is done.

The dead, the dead can ryde apace,
Oure wed bed here is fit;

Our race is ridde, oure journey ore,
Our endless union knit.".

And lo! an yren-grated gate

Soon biggens to their viewe;

He crackte his whype, the clangynge boltes, The doores asunder flewe.

They pass, and 'twas on graves they trode; "Tis hither we are bounde;"

And many a tombstone gostlie white,
Lay in the moonshyne round.

And when he from his steede alytte,
His armour, green with rust,

Which damps of charnel vaults had bred
Straight fell away to dust.

His head became a naked skull,

Nor haire nor eyne had hee;

His body grew a skeleton,

And att his dry and boney heele
No spur was left to be:

And inn his witherde hand you might
The scythe and hour-glasse see.

And lo! his steede did thin to smoke,
And charnel fires outbreathe;

And paled, and bleach'd, then vanish'd quite,
The mayde from underneathe.

And hollow howlings hung in aire,

And shrieks from vaults arose,

Then knew the mayde she might no more
Her living eyes unclose.

But onwarde to the judgment seat,

Through myste and moonlight dreare:

The gostlie crewe, their flyghte persewe,
And hollowe inn her eare:

-"Be patient, though thyne herte should breke,

Arrayne not heavn's decree;

Thou nowe art of thie bodie refte,
Thie soule forgiven bee!"—

[This is a translation, by Walter Scott, or, to use his own words (Poetical Works,' vi., 307, ed. 1830), rather an imitation of the Wilde Jäger of the German poet Bürger. It was first published, under the name of The Chase,' in 1796, in a volume entitled The Chase, and William and Helen; Two Ballads, from the German of Gottfried Augustus Bürger.' Edinburgh, 4to. William and Helen' was the name Mr. Scott gave to what Bürger himself called 'Lenore.' "The tradition upon which it is founded,' says Sir Walter, bears, that formerly a Wildgrave, or keeper of a royal forest, named Faulkenburg, was so much addicted to the pleasures of the chase, and otherwise so extremely profligate and cruel, that he not only followed this unhallowed amusement on the Sabbath, and other days consecrated to religious duty, but accompanied it with the most unbeard-of oppression upon the poor peasants, who were under his vassalage. When this second Nimrod died, the people adopted a superstition, founded probably on the many various uncouth sounds heard in the depth of a German forest, during the silence of the night. They conceived they still heard the cry of the Wildgrave's hounds, and the well-known cheer of the deceased hunter, the sounds of his horse's feet, and the rustling of the branches before the game, the pack, and the sportsmen, are also distinctly discriminated, but the phantoms are rarely, if ever, visible.' This superstition is not confined to Germany, as the reader will find by consulting the notes, p. 849.]

HE Wildgrave winds his bugle horn;
To horse, to horse, halloo, halloo!

His fiery courser snuffs the morn,
And thronging serfs their Lord pursue

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The eager pack, from couples freed,

Dash thro' the bush, the brier, the brake;
While answering hound, and horn, and steed,
The mountain echoes startling wake.

The beams of God's own hallow'd day
Had painted yonder spire with gold,
And, calling sinful man to pray,

Loud, long, and deep the bell had toll'd.

But still the Wildgrave onward rides ;
Halloo, halloo! and hark again!
When, spurring from opposing sides,
Two stranger horsemen join the train.

Who was each stranger, left and right,
Well may I guess, but dare not tell :
The right-hand steed was silver white,
The left, the swarthy hue of hell.

The right-hand horseman, young and fair
His smile was like the morn of May;
The left, from eye of tawny glare,
Shot midnight lightning's lurid ray.

He wav'd his huntsman's cap on high,
Cried, "Welcome, welcome, noble Lord!
What sport can earth, or sea, or sky,
To match the princely chase, afford?"

"Cease thy loud bugle's clanging knell,"
Cried the fair youth, with silver voice;
"And for devotion's choral swell,

Exchange the rude unhallow'd noise.

To-day th' ill-omen'd chase forbear :
Yon bell yet summons to the fane;
To-day the warning spirit hear,

To-morrow thou may'st mourn in vain.”

"Away, and sweep the glades along
The sable hunter hoarse replies;
"To muttering monks leave matin song,
And bells, and books, and mysteries."
The Wildgrave spurr'd his ardent steed,
And, launching forward with a bound,
"Who for thy drowsy priestlike rede